"Mom, can you help me with my homework?" Zaltana dried a plate, deciding that she was going to stick to paper plates, and made her way to the living room where her eleven year old was doing his homework. It had been three years since Zaltana saw the Joes in person, but she often communicated with them over the internet and on the phone. She laid down on the floor, her bones popping. Her son smirked at her. "You're getting old, mom."
"Shut up, Aron." Zaltana bumped shoulders with the boy. She had several fights with Hillary about this arrangement, but when Hillary got knocked up with triplets, she found that she couldn't handle three babies and a kid that would soon be a teenager. The door to her bedroom opened and someone tickled Zaltana. She laughed hard, the sensitive parts of her body being tickled. She flipped over, and the sensation ceased.
"Is my woman helping out with homework again?" Zaltana had been steady with him for two years after he found her in the gym working of steam from another fight with Hillary that left Aron in tears. Brian was a really cool guy. He was loyal, kind and accepted that Zaltana was a package deal. The blonde trusted him more than she trusted a lot of people, her son included. It didn't help that he had blue eyes a girl could just die staring into.
"Your woman?" Zaltana grinned as he leaned in, his lips brushing hers.
"Hey, get a room!" The couple laughed. Brian got up to go finish dishes, adding on to the list of things Zaltana loved about him. Her smile died as she thought of someone else, someone she hadn't seen at all in the three years. Aron could get anything out of his mom, so he knew immediately who she was thinking of. "He'll come back eventually."
Zaltana shrugged as the doorbell rang. She rolled back onto her stomach as Brian answered the door. There was a moment before her boyfriend fell to his knees. Zaltana pushed her son to his room where there was a place for him to hide where no one could find him. The gun under the coffee table came into her hands as a familiar uniform entered her living room. "I told you we would come back. Shame we had to kill him."
Zaltana sent an SOS message from her pocket to a certain ninja, who could be there after she left, in just enough time. She hoped. He probably wouldn't even bother...
Brian was reaching toward her, and Zaltana felt her heart clench terribly watching him like that. "What will it takes to get you to leave him and Aron alone?" She couldn't hide her defeated tone or look. She didn't have the heart to do it.
"Volunteer for the Prototype Program."
He wore a white jacket as he came through the door. There was someone leaving against the wall, pale and barely alive. Storm Shadow knelt down. "Who came here?" Storm Shadow assumed him to be Brian, the one Snake Eyes told him about. Brian's head rules down, eyeing something in his hand. Storm Shadow saw the insignia and turned his thoughts elsewhere. "The boy?"
"Room." It was a croak, and South Shadow knew to move quickly. He knocked three times on the wall, the signal to come out in Lilah- Zaltana's family. Aron flew from the closet he was hiding in, eyes so much like his mother's searching.
"Where's mom?"